At the beginning, I am biased. I live on the Chesapeake Bay. The extent of my bias does not stop there; I am on the board of the Midshore Riverkeepers Conservancy.
Our nation’s finances remind me of where I live. The Bay, like our nation’s finances, has been used and abused. Hundreds of thousands of acres of forest land were converted to cities, suburbs, and a wide range of commercial, agricultural and residential uses. Generations of persons fortunate enough to live along a watershed that extends from Cooperstown, NY to Norfolk, VA paid too little attention to what washed into the Bay. We are now making progress on the recovery of its water quality and dependent flora and fauna.
Not content with earlier budget priorities, the Trump Administration recommends that the cleanup fund for the Bay be reduced from $73 million a year in 2016, to zero. President Trump, at the same time, put off reform in what are called entitlement programs. It is these entitlement programs, up and down the various layers of local, state and federal budgets that pillory our nation’s economic strength just as aggressive development attacked the Bay’s watershed.
Benefits to be paid in the future have with few exceptions been underestimated and underfunded. Social Security and Medicare are just the most evident national examples. This underfunded liability distorts budgets and often pinches needed programs and reforms. And as the cost of servicing the debt increases, the pain of profligacy will get worse.
Tomorrow is not unconnected from today. If we mess things up, we have to pay. When we fail to fully fund our promises, the liability becomes a dead weight on the backs of our progeny and trust in the full faith and credit of the United States.
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Speaking of trust, in an especially deft phrase, Tom Friedman, columnist for the New York Times, noted that “government moves at the speed of trust.”
The trust that is being squandered by the President’s erratic use of insults, slights, fights and worse will be a dead weight in the years to come. International allies will first be wrong-footed and then will attempt to avoid meaningful collaboration.
His political competitor’s will, to their eventual damage, simply be anti-Trump as if that is all the public needs to know.
Most media will specialize in criticism while the few that are more comfortable with the President will risk their reputations. Both versions will further discredit an important institution–the media that needs repaired.
It is hard to know how this ends or whether there is any possibility that Trump will cease to manufacture and distribute weapons to those who relish the chance to use them.
Since I believe both Parties are disintegrating, I am looking for new political leadership that will offer a way out of this mess. Hopefully leadership will emerge that is honest about the nation’s finances. Most importantly we need to speak truth to power about our fiscal mess and not just the part that interests us.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
mark dellacqua says
Like most problems in life the answers are generally simple, easy no, simple yes. When Obama took office the deficit was 8 trillion dollars and in 8 years he managed to run it up
to 20 trillion dollars and not much to show for it. With a 20 trillion dollar deficit we have only 2 choices: 1]- raise taxes and continue to let Washington spend taxpayers money like a drunken sailor and maybe Washington will apply some of the tax increase to actually paying off the deficit. 2]- reduce the size of the federal government and run it like a business and not like a charity.
I work for the federal government and have witnessed firsthand the waste of taxpayer money by reckless spending and poor management and that’s only 1 agency out of many. Near the end of the fiscal year if agencies or departments haven’t spent all of the funds that made up their budget for that year, the budget for the following year will see a decrease so what managers will do is spend the rest of the money on anything in order to insure that the budget for the next year doesn’t decrease. This is just one of many examples of government waste that has become routine at the level of the federal government. If the average US citizen can’t spend money that they don’t have then why should the government be exempt from the same common sense approach to finances. If America wants to get out of debt and operate in the black then the answer is simple: don’t spend money that you don’t have and eliminate the waste while having some type of financial accountability. Remember the alternative is in raising taxes……….does anybody really want to pay more taxes?
James Nick says
“Run the government like a business”! Ah yes, there it is… the predictable, well-worn(out) right wing trope. Whenever I hear this it always makes me wonder: Where exactly are these mythical businesses that the government needs to model itself after. I conclude they must be in the land of Puff the Magic Dragon and pink unicorns where all government is woefully corrupt and ineffective and all businesses can do no wrong.
I wonder which particular business Mr Dellacqua would select as a model of efficient, innovative, fiscally responsible management. How about GM or Chrysler, both of which needed government bailouts? How about Enron, Lehman Brothers, or even Volkswagen as models of ethical behavior? Or how about, as examples, Pan Am, Bethlehem Steel, Polaroid, Eastman Kodak, Blackberry, Borders Books, Yahoo? Or any one of former Blue-Chip, Fortune 500 companies that now occupy the waste bins of business history.
Or perhaps Mr Dellacqua would propose Apple, Google, or facebook. No doubt about it. These companies truly represent the very best of the best of what American business has to offer today. Who wouldn’t want to adopt their business philosophy to the government? All are run by over-educated, pointy-headed, coastal liberal elites and offer cradle-to-grave paternalistic perks that range from off-the-scale compensation and Cadillac health insurance plans to free food and transportation to/from work. If that’s how Mr Dellacqua would like to see the government run this country, I’m in
Mr Dellacqua also speaks of witnessing, first hand, government waste and poor management. How departments spend year-end leftover funds so as not to suffer budget cuts in the next fiscal year. Oh, the horrors! Mr Dellacqua needs to get out more. I can categorically assure Mr Dellacqua that what he is witnessing is not unique to the government. I spent a long career working in a healthcare behemoth whose name would be instantly recognizable by almost everyone on the planet. The company always sorts to the very top of the most admired, respected, and successful companies in the world by both business leaders and consumers. Guess what? I witnessed the same thing Mr Dellacqua holds up as evidence of government misfeasance and malfeasance.
In any human endeavor, I’m afraid there just isn’t going to be that mythical perfection Mr Dellacqua seems to think is out there.
Jane Martin says
Thank you for this. I wish we could get through to this man in the White House. He really frightens me! As a grandmother of 80, I won’t be around to see the long-term results of his mistakes, but my children and grandchildren will.